Tag Archives: AC Shadows

April 30, 2026 · 22:50

Out of my mind

Yup, this happens. We sometimes lose it and after a few days without sleep. My mind went bah bah too (a black sheep reference) and as such I was driven between the Ubisoft setting (and Article in UK Metro), the options that Saudi Arabia has in entertainment, the NEOM setting and a few more things. As such lets start at the beginning.

UK Metro is giving us (at https://metro.co.uk/2026/04/30/assassins-creed-doesnt-need-remakes-needs-a-complete-overhaul-28169243/) where we are given ‘Assassin’s Creed doesn’t need remakes, it needs a complete overhaul’, I have had a few thoughts on that in the past, especially when anger hits me as you approach your first fort and tornado’s swirl around that fortress (until you destroyed its canons), it gave me the rudest most violent thoughts (I’ll spare you the details). You see, I know it is a game and not a very realistic one. My largest issue is that it is not really an Assassins Creed game, it could have been a legendary upgrade from Sid Meier’s Pirates, it never went there. And beside the excellent graphics there was a lot more, but there were annoying parts too (like running like the Prince of Persia after shanties), it was the setting that I gave the phrase ‘If you want to appease everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one’ it came to blows there and more afterwards. Then we get “The original Assassin’s Creed failed to live up to this promise. It was highly repetitive and pretty shoddy despite its visual splendour, while the sci-fi Animus twist largely got in the way of the 12th century hijinks. The series, however, executed on its original promise with Assassin’s Creed 2, which replicated the Italian Renaissance period with a dynamite (and still series’ best) protagonist in Ezio, who led its two sequels Brotherhood and Revelations.” I disagree, there is truth in all that, but Assassins Creed delivered originality and a stellar script. Running around in Accra and Jerusalem was a boyhood dream come true. Yes, there was repetition, it was originally release on the PS3 20 years ago. A system with 512MB memory with a 20GB hard drive. There were still limitations in those days, but the game gave as good as we can expect from any system in those days and AC2 surpassed it beautifully. So whilst I created the setting for new updates in usage for the Ubisoft titles, Metro also gives us “Assassin’s Creed games aren’t known for their bold narratives, but maybe a radical, unexpected shift in setting could spark some creative verve. Go more contemporary with a Second World War spy slant, or lean into the sci-fi premise and shoot forwards in time instead. Fundamentally, surprise people with something fresh beyond the swords and sandals.” A setting I disagree with, don’t get me wrong. They are partially right with that view, but there were only three greats in RPG like story telling. There was Bethesda (something about scrolls), there was Bioware with Dragons and Mass Effect and there was Ubisoft. In those days these made the hits and the lines. As far as I know there was nothing like Assassins Creed and I never got all the flags (at least three attempts were made playing from start to stop) and I never regretted any hours I played that game. Could more be done? Perhaps, but then I would have to do this. I don’t hod anything against the makers of the first three games. They delivered.

So a rewrite of the entire Assassins creed is possible, but where? Consider that the Playstation and Switch2 are there, so is the PC and whatever console Microsoft has. An entire overhaul would have been possible on streaming systems, but that is wet stuff under the bridge (I believe they call this water). The next part of the disagreed issues is given with “Assassin’s Creed is one of the biggest franchises in gaming, and was once a creative force in the realm of third person action games, but Ubisoft has allowed it to coast into an outdated and predictable mould. It’s about time it stopped dredging up the past, and gave players an exciting, rejuvenated reason to be excited about its future.” I agree with this, but there is some disagreement. Especially the ‘outdated and predictable mould’ yes they are outdated, but they were good, there is a reason heart beat faster at the sight of the Ezio collection, there is genuine love for AC Shadows and that is not outdated. And as the predictability, there is a partial agreement, but I want Stealth games, I want that rush of sneaking up on a person (in a game mind you) from behind and use a karambit to give him a necktie red colouring scheme (those who know, know).

An overhaul might be called for to get rid off the prince of Persia parts. I don’t mind the shanties, which makes for a lovely pirate lore, but they should go about it different. Including buying them from entertainers, buying musical instruments in general stores and a few other places (like in a commanders room in a fortress). All options and the difference of the attempts gives us the diversification. As I have been replaying Black Flag the last few days (I only opened 70% of the achievements), there is a need to get more of them, although I do not think I will get them all.

So I agree with the overhaul, but not because of the ‘outdated and predictable mould’, I believe that if Ubisoft slams (and deletes) the setting of ‘If you want to appease everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one’ because that was the undoing of that franchise. On the other side. I already handed Ubisoft 2 directions, one with the language approach as over 3 billion people are learning languages and the next one is the creation of immersive storylines, making it a collection of books and that can be done with a whole range of locations in Assassins Creed and Watchdogs, although 1 and 2 are in the United States and they haven’t spoken English in decades, so there is that. I placed in my blog the Idea for a Watchdogs 4 which I placed in Kyoto, it was essential to do it there and have a hard mode which would stumble the gamer in Japanese, but there would be glasses, like smart glasses and I did that somewhere in 2018/2019.

But for Assassins Creed, there are a few other settings, but the bulk is OK as far as I can tell, going all the way back to the first Assassins Creed, which was in 1191 (sorry, a Dr. Who joke). The part that was stellar was the storyline, the entire assassins/templar setting was never given to a gamer before, no one ever had the ‘audacity’ to give us the combination of reality with storyline before (as far as I know), so when we look at an overhaul we tend to agree, because the game has taken such a large setting over the last 20 years that everyone agrees with one of more games. I reckon except the ‘Ezio’ games, they are close to perfect it had a 90%, a 87% and a 82%. Revelations made the mistake of too much Prince of Persia, but I could live with that. The only part I disagree on was Brotherhood, the stealth was more demanding and better and whilst some ‘complain’ the tasks were much more on par and defining, I haven’t touched this game close to a decade, so I might pick it up again.

So there is much to agree to and even more to disagree to. Even my stuff is subjective and I get that it might rub people the wrong way, this is simply as gaming is highly personal and we all have our own cloud of gaming in mind, I get that. So am I against the article in Metro or in favour? That’s hard to say, they touch on issues that are real, but it goes against 20 years of programming and the fact that we all play according to our desire in play, so overall I am is disagreement on the article, but it touches on a few very real settings that we all agree with and with a franchise this big that is to be expected, one last part is that I haven’t played AC Shadows for a while and I haven’t finished it as I never beat Joken Hokkyo, after a dozen times I just gave up. That happens too. I am not always in the best headspace for some moments in time. The open fight at the end was too taking and not very Assassins Creed.

As I was having coffee

I was having a coffee this morning, and as I was downing the hot brown liquid I watched two girls laughing and working a few tables onwards as they were laughing and showing their work to each other. The coffee place was empty, os it was an easy effort by them. I reckon that they were working on assignments together. But then it hit me. The ‘What If’ moment. As that went viral in my brain pretty much instantly.

So take the idea:

Here you see ‘Companion’ and it is a simple setting. You have two laptops (optionally with mobiles) and the app creates a shared workspace. A simple virtual workspace where you can share docs, sounds and whatever the laptops can provide. I know there is MS Teams, but the idea is to remove Microsoft from the equation (at any given moment), giving people what they might need (or not). A simple sharing setting when the coffeeshop is not as quiet as it might be, could be the classroom. A simple setting that gives the people a sharable workspace. As far as I know there is nothing out there at present without the ‘taint’ that Microsoft introduces. A simple setting that allows people to share their pages and keynote settings at the mere creation of the moment. Without pesky megabytes of data at the control of Microsoft.

Yup this was a simple as I got it made, In a mere second at the bequest of hot coffee (Cappuccino) in a moments’ notice. So my mind set the simple setting of laptop one (with mobile) and laptop two (also with mobile) and they create the workspace that is in both laptops and that is how you create a simple workspace at a moments notice.

Is it too much?
That is the simple setting that I see and perhaps there is something out there, but as far as I can tell Google doesn’t seemingly have it. As such I wrote it down so someone can tell Sergey Brin that there is an idea out there he might be able to use (I seem to have misplaced his mobile number) As such, this was my day and now it is time to slaughter the troops of Lord Nobunaga, I am going through the Castles of Japan like a hot knife through butter and I am laying waste of his Samurai ranks. Time to destroy whatever he has in Harima and decrease that Obunaga population to near zero. A man needs his hobby I say.

Have a great day and perhaps the coffee of tomorrow will bring another new idea.

One thought of many

That is at times all of the settings we see. We see an idea and we focus on it. I for one am ‘smitten’ with that affliction. It came to pass as I have been playing AC Shadows and the story gives us the Portuguese. I remember that setting from the James Clavell setting given to us by Richard Chamberlain in 1978, with the work Shogun he, Toshiro Mifune and Yoko Shimada put Japan on our eyesights forever. This is not an attack on the 2024 Shogun, as I haven’t seen it yet (not out on Blu-ray in Australia) but I have heard many good things about it and I look forward to seeing Hiroyuki Sanada replaying the role that (as I see it) made Toshiro Mifune a great actor in the western world. That is the setting, but it is not what this is about. The setting is set around the Jesuit order, one that had influence in Japan (I am not judging whether it is good or bad) and there is no reasonable way that any jesuit makes for a good assassin. But the setting of AC Shadows could propagate the Jesuit settings, or as they call it ‘Societas Iesu’ founded in 1540, as such it has a rich history, and history being the capital setting as this society is founded on “evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 countries. Jesuits work in education, research, and cultural pursuits. They also conduct retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, sponsor direct social and humanitarian works, and promote ecumenical dialogue” for me the idea of prolongating education has another setting. You see, as classes go into disarray in the near future, we need to set new boundaries, not more investments. I see it that the backdrop of Assassins Creed could be used to a setting to learn languages AC Shadows Japanese and Portuguese, Just as the setting of AC Brotherhood could be the starting stage of Italian and Latin. Two programs that give rise to 4 languages. We don’t always get that lucky. There are settings where we merely could learn English (AC Syndicate and Watchdogs legion) so we have an old and new setting for the language. Students could learn a lot by what Ubisoft set in motion. There are settings for Greek, America (they don’t speak English, LOL) and from that we go on. And the fact is that these students can learn all the time (at home or at School) a setting to propagate knowledge and it goes far beyond the borders of that nation. See how these languages give rise to people in India have a much larger setting for languages. As some might ridicule the idea, the setting has been given and some (preferably in Ubisoft) will give rise to that idea and equip something like the Meta Quest 3 and walk around in these conditions, all whilst practicing your language skills. We get all the news on ‘sue strategy’ whilst no one is pushing that envelope to get something going. I gave visibility to this setting almost 6 months ago, so my quote for “Google and Amazon left billions on the floor” is hereby set to true. It is not the only setting there are more, so when you start realising that education is under the hammer and you are shown that education has to be cut, see where we could have given a larger rise to a new pedestal of learning. In that same setting AC Shadows give rise to culture (As does AC Brotherhood) we can argue that Paris in not a setting for culture (look at me, making another funny).

We need to consider that the art of culture might soon be lost as America squanders whatever it has to keep its billionaires afloat and here Ubisoft has a larger setting to push education to a larger stage in Europe and India, because 1 billion hungry Indians (hungry for knowledge) is a large population to push an idea to. There might be issues over time, but the Ubisoft solution is about 80% finished at present. So do what you want with this idea, but at least I was thinking outside of the box, no AI required and it is close to release (the voice interaction requires actual programming), so when you see another BS media piece on what to sue from who, consider that they never looked at the opportunities given, a simple setting I employed, with no real issue on getting profit (this will be in the hands of Meta and Ubisoft), a donation will of course be graciously accepted. Are you listening Yves Guillemot? 🙂

Have a great day and try to learn something today, even if it is in a direction you never expected. I today did my bit for education, technology, arts and culture. What will you do today?

1 Comment

Filed under Finance, Gaming, IT, Media, Science, Uncategorized

Tagged as AC Brotherhood, AC Shadows, Assassins Creed, Hiroyuki Sanada, India, James Clavell, Jesuit Order, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, Meta Quest, Richard Chamberlain, Societas Iesu, Toshiro Mifune, Ubisoft, Watchdogs, Yoko Shimada, Yves Guillemot

September 4, 2025 · 13:19

Revenue ignored

That is the setting I see. It is likely that others do not see it that way and that is fine. I and referring to Ubisoft. I got their product AC Shadow last week. At present I can only afford it as a preowned game, that is life. But as it is one of the first preowned games I am getting in that way, I am now ‘devoid’ of the initial codes for cosmetic extras. That is fine, I get that these codes are not transferable. That is the benefit of the full game purchasers. However considering that this game was as such 50% cheaper, Ubisoft is also out of revenue. So, I am guessing that Ubisoft has the option to ‘reclaim’ additional revenue.

As such I now do not have:

Thrown to the dogs bonus quest
Claws of Awaji expansion
Yasuke Sekiryu Character pack

I am not complaining on this, codes are not transferable and I think that is fair, but then I thought that these codes might be optionally bought for $3-$5 after a while. So lets say that there is a delay to buy these codes by months up to 12 months. So those who bought the full codes get these ‘extras’ for up to a year and after that Ubisoft can get sales from these codes. It could bank them millions. Optionally you could earn them through the Ubisoft store for exchanging these Ubi-coins. That is up to them, but I reckon that this solution is something that could bank them millions. This is set to the dozen of so games they released and for the millions of people who bought a preowned game. I am actually surprised that no one bought this to the attention of that youthful young scoundrel called Yves Guillemot (apparently the CEO of that place). It is not that CEO’s walk away from revenue, as such I wonder why this was decided. I get that there should be an advantage to the buying population, but after 6 month or a year? I reckon that there is a case t be made for that revenue.

And that is after the setting where Ubisoft is walking away from millions. Ah well, some people can afford to walk away from that amount of money. What a luxury.

As I see it, there is now an additional reason to add a Japanese language model to the idea’s that I already spouted and Ubisoft has another reason to reconsider some of the ideas that re out in the open. And as I see it, Apple is dragging its feet as well. But then they decided to call themselves innovative people (lacking innovation that is).

Anyway, from my point of view AC Shadows is a magnificent product. I was a little upset by the 140GB is had to download and it took hours to do this. But then no one is perfect (almost no one).

So whilst you consider the impact of all that material that could now be downloaded to enhance your playing ability, consider the impact of all these games getting a second stage and what additions could now spice up their wallets in addition to issues they forgotten they had.

Have a great day, Vancouver will join us in this Thursday in a little under 4 hours.